‘Perforene’ Makes Salt Water Safe, Affordable To Drink

“Access to clean drinking water is going to become more critical as the global population continues to grow, and we believe that this simple and affordable solution will be a game-changer for the industry” -Dr. Ray O. Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Lockheed Martin

We speculated last June that graphene could open up the oceans to or palettes, and now it finally has.

Perforene Patent

The USPTO awarded Lockheed Martin a patent this week for a potentially game-changing water filtration membrane made from graphene.

The new solution, aptly dubbed “perforene”, is generated when holes less than one nanometer wide are implanted into a graphene membrane. Graphene itself is an incredibly thin (one atom), yet fascinating sheet of graphite.

These nanometric holes are so small that they’re able to trap H2O ions while enabling water molecules to easily and effortless pass through, reducing the clog factor and pressure on the filtration medium.

Bold Future

The industry standard of salt-water desalination and filtration, reverse osmosis, has been costly and almost not worth the hassle. Perforene promises to perform this epic task of making the drinkable consumable for a fraction of the cost.

Now that Lockheed has procured the patent for this graphene darling, they’re looking towards commercial applications.